Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my friend and colleague from Souris--Moose Mountain for a very passionate and I believe heartfelt expression of how many Canadians feel. It is certainly empowering and invigorating for members of parliament to see such a straight from the heart expression of the abhorrence Canadians feel for this issue.
I took from within his remarks the desire of the member to see more done. I would ask him whether he would support, and I am sure he would, a national child protection strategy. It would look specifically at expanding other areas of the criminal code to put our efforts toward protecting children, to give the police and the judiciary greater ability to respond in a firm fashion.
I am talking about in some instances giving the judges the ability to bar or destroy certain evidence that was used and introduced in the courts. We could allow judges to have mandatory minimum sentences apply in some instances where child pornography was present. We could allow for the taking of DNA samples, as we have in certain instances in the criminal code that deal with issues, I would suggest, far less damaging and far less detrimental than the issue of child pornography. We could allow for the rules of disclosure to be amended. This would empower the police in some instances to produce a sample of the offensive material rather than the reams and reams of documents and thousands of pages of information.
As we have seen in other instances, we could allow the courts to put creative sentences in place that would bar these offenders, pedophiles and those who engage in this activity, from any contact with children. Sadly, many of these offences that occur are perpetrated by individuals known to the children, in fact, individuals who are in a position of trust. Current provisions in the criminal code bar individuals from attending schoolyards or swimming pools, but nothing bars their interaction with children in a dwelling house, which is where most of these offences take place.
Surely there is more we could do, a national strategy that touches on just a few of those issues and others that time restricts me from mentioning. Would the hon. member certainly like to see that effort undertaken by this place to gain greater relevance and greater importance in parliamentarians' efforts to eradicate child pornography?